Shōgun, Part 1 (Asian Saga, #1)

by James Clavell

That night Toranaga could not sleep. This was rare for him because normally he could defer the most pressing problem until the next day, knowing that if he was alive the next day he would solve it to the best of his ability. He had long since discovered that peaceful sleep could provide the answer to most puzzles, and if not, what did it really matter? Wasn’t life just a dewdrop within a dewdrop?

How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.

“Actually I agree I have a fat rump but what can I do? I just like to eat and that’s Buddha’s problem and my karma, neh?”